DANIEL KAGAN, UPI: A new study by
the
Cato Institute
says that the final official government report on the 1993 Branch
Davidian disaster in Waco, Tex.-- which exonerated federal officials
from wrongdoing-- is "not supported by the factual evidence."
In "No Confidence: An Unofficial Account of the Waco Incident,"
criminal justice scholar Timothy Lynch, director of the libertarian
Cato's Project on Criminal Justice, analyzes the legal implications
of certain undisputed events and concludes that the official
investigation into the incident -- led by special prosecutor
former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri -- was "soft and incomplete."
According to Lynch, many obvious crimes have gone unprosecuted.
For example, says Lynch, ATF agents were caught on tape assaulting
a local television cameraman after he had filmed their retreat
from the initial raid on the Branch Davidian complex. Lynch says
that ATF agents also lied to federal investigators -- a federal
offense -- but were never prosecuted despite recommendations
by U.S. Marshals. More seriously, he says, FBI agents exhibited
a gross disregard for human life when they indiscriminately fired
"ferret" rounds at the Davidian residence and used
tanks to ram its walls. "Since at least one child was struck
by a ferret round, second-degree murder charges may be appropriate,"
Lynch writes.

NOVEMBER
2000

INDICTING
THE MESSENGER

WASHINGTON
POST: The whistle-blower who triggered the probe into the 1993
deaths of 74 Branch Davidians near Waco, Tex., was indicted yesterday
by a federal grand jury on charges of obstructing justice and
making false statements to investigators for special counsel
John C. Danforth . . . Johnston, a former Texas prosecutor, maintained
his innocence and said he is being made a scapegoat because he
embarrassed top government officials. Danforth said Johnston
is being prosecuted because he broke the law . . . Johnston's
lawyer, Michael Kennedy, said his client will vigorously fight
the charges. He said Johnston has been targeted because he embarrassed
the government by forcing disclosure that the FBI fired pyrotechnic
tear gas projectiles in the raid that left 74 Branch Davidians
dead after their compound went up in flames. Attorney General
Janet Reno and others had told Congress no such devices were
used.

LEE HANCOCK & MICHELLE MITTELSTADT,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A congressional report alleges that President
Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno misled the public for
years with claims that US military experts endorsed the "flawed"
FBI tear gas attack that ended the Branch Davidian siege. "President
Clinton and Attorney General Reno have deceived the American
people for over seven years by misrepresenting that the military
endorsed, sanctioned or otherwise approvingly evaluated the plan,"
stated the report by the House Government Reform Committee. The
99-page report also vigorously criticizes that Justice Department's
response in the aftermath of the tragedy, contending that all
of the agency's actions "were consistent with an organization
that was not eager to learn the full truth about what happened
on April 19, 1993" . . . The report issued by the committee's
Republican majority includes accounts from an Army general and
colonel of how they refused Ms. Reno's request to evaluate an
FBI plan to assault the Davidian compound when FBI officials
were seeking her approval for the tear-gas operation carried
out on April 19, 1993. The two special forces officers said they
told Ms. Reno that federal limits on involvement by US military
in domestic law enforcement actions prohibited them from offering
any critique or suggestion about the Waco plan . . . The report
adds that both officers told Congressional investigators that
they were stunned when they later learned that the tear-gassing
plan had been allowed to go forward, but were never contacted
by Justice officials assigned to review what happened after the
siege. "When they left the April 14, 1993, meeting, they
were convinced the FBI would never execute the proposed operations
plan as it was briefed at the meeting. The Army Colonel stated
he believed the Attorney General 'didn't buy the plan being proposed
by the FBI.' ...His impression from the meeting was that no one
thought it was a smart way to proceed. He went on to state that
he was astonished when he saw the fire on TV on April 19, 1993.

AUG
2000

LEE
HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The former prosecutor who warned
last year of a possible cover-up of federal actions in the Branch
Davidian siege has been told he is being targeted for prosecution
by Waco Special Counsel John C. Danforth. Friends and associates
of former assistant US Attorney Bill Johnston say he has been
told by the special counsel's office that he will soon be indicted
on charges ranging from obstruction of justice to making false
statements to federal investigators. They say he has been told
that the charges stem from his withholding of several pages of
personal, pretrial notes from the 1994 federal prosecution of
surviving Branch Davidians. They say that Mr. Johnston's action
was a mistake driven by his concern that his notes would be misused
by others in the US attorney's office who were angry about his
public criticism of the Justice Department's handling of the
Waco tragedy . . . Mr. Johnston's friends and former law enforcement
associates in Waco say they already are rallying support for
the embattled former prosecutor, starting a legal defense fund
for what is expected to be an aggressive court battle . . .

JULY
2000

THE REAL
DANFORTH REPORT

The so-called
Danforth Report has predictably exonerated the government participants
in the Waco massacre. But the accuracy of this document is seriously
called into question by an another Danforth report, written six
years earlier, in the form of a bizarre and self-damning exoneration
of Clarence Thomas. After reading Danforth's "Resurrection,"
one should be loathe to ask the author for the correct time,
let alone any questions of greater complexity or ethical content.

It is
important to bear in mind that this political and media icon,
near veepster, and prospective Dubya appointee holds both a divinity
and law degree from Yale Thus he came to the Thomas matter as
a person professing allegiance to higher moral standards than,
say, your average political hit man. Yet page after page, Danforth
displays remarkable ethical entropy, indifference to facts, a
willingness to muck around in the gutter, and a sanctimonious
self-justification that is almost, well, cult-like.

Because
of Danforth's efforts to send Waco down the memory hole and the
likelihood that we will hear of him again should Bush win, a
few points about his strange book are worth noting:

*** Danforth
knew Thomas wasn't qualified for the court. Danforth never admits
this but hands us the evidence:

-- Danforth,
who had hired Thomas while Missouri attorney general, dispenses
with Thomas' virtues in two pages of trivial anecdotes, including
the fact that as a judge he was nice to a black employee of the
Senate Commerce Committee. He adds: "My support for Clarence
Thomas had nothing to do with Clarence the person. I assumed
President Bush could nominate any number of qualified individuals.
. . I also assumed that there were many people more experienced
and with better legal ability than Clarence. Certainly Clarence
was intelligent enough to do the work on the Supreme Court, but
he had served only a short time on the court of appeals, and
most of his professional experience was not in the practice of
law but in administering. . ."

-- "It
seemed to me that because of his brief history as a lawyer and
a judge, Clarence's first challenge was to get a 'qualified'
rating by the American Bar Association. I thought as well that
senators seeking to defeat him would keep him before the committee
for a prolonged period of time, peppering him with difficult
questions in an effort to show that he did not know enough law
to serve on the highest court in the land."

[In fact,
Thomas ended up in near the bottom of the only class for which
records are available. All other records are under seal, although
Thomas presumably could have unsealed them. Thomas' high point
while working for Danforth in Missouri was to win a case in support
of the governor's decision to abolish vanity license plates.
Thomas then went on to be counsel for Monsanto, where, as Newsweek
put it, "he learned the law of pesticides, fungicides and
rodinicides." At the time of his Supreme Court appointment,
Judge Thomas had written just 20 decisions. Further, Bush had
named 73 judges in his first two years, but only two of them
were black, including Thomas. Thus, as Danforth undoubtedly knew,
Bush did not have much of a pool to choose from if he was looking
for a black nominee.

And there
is little doubt that is what was in the GOP's mind. The Sunday
before Thomas was nominated, Orin Hatch appeared on the David
Brinkley Show and was pressed to name some potential court choices.
He said:

"Well,
you have --you'd have to start with people like Ken Starr, the
current solicitor general. And I think the president will have
to look to minorities, such as our person on the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals [pauses] -- Fernando Fernandez I believe is
his name. There's a fellow down on a district court down in Texas.
Edith Jones, a wonderful woman jurist from the south. You could
go on and on. Our current black judge on the Circuit Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia, he'd be a terrific choice."

Hatch
couldn't even remember the name of the guy he would soon be assiduously
defending. But he sure knew the color of Clarence Thomas' skin.]

*** Danforth
and others coached Thomas over long periods of time, in order
to give his colleagues and the American public a false impression
of Thomas' abilities.

-- "Study
for the hearing did not begin in earnest until after Congress
recessed in early August. Seven days a week, the routine was
the same. Mike Luttig gave Clarence large notebooks, each covering
an area of the law. For example, there were two notebooks on
the right of privacy, which includes the abortion issue. Each
notebook contained the text of important cases and law review
articles on the subject. The material was voluminous. Clarence
got up between four and six o'clock every morning to being reading
the notebook of the day. Every afternoon, Clarence and Mike met
for two to five hours, usually at Clarence's house. Mike, who
had done his own preparation in the morning, asked Clarence questions
-- about court opinions, about dissents, even about footnotes
to cases. The Mike, the process resembled a study group at law
school."

-- "In
fact, Luttig himself did not know how Clarence would rule as
a judge. In Mike's eyes, Clarence had been 'much more of a political
person than he was a judicial or a lawyer person.'"

*** Danforth
knew that Thomas lacked the temperament to be a good justice.

-- "Luttig
explained to Clarence the perils of giving public voice to his
anger at attacks. If Clarence were to say what he thought, the
next criticism would be that he lacked judicial temperament .
. . Throughout the confirmation process, Luttig worried that
Clarence's strong feelings and passion to speak out would hurt
him. Always, Clarence's first reaction to a charge was shock
and outrage."

-- "On
Wednesday night, Clarence did not sleep at all. Ginni [his wife]stared
to sleep, but was soon awake with her husband's tossing turning
at her side. He got out of bed and was on the floor. Ginni describes
it as 'like something was inside of him, physically, like there
was this battle going on inside of him.'"

-- "Mike
arrived at about nine o'clock and was sitting at the conference
table when Clarence came in. He stood as Clarence closed the
door. Clarence broke down immediately. He headed toward the conference
table in what Mike describes as 'loud tears.' He began to stagger
and seemed to collapse. Mike caught him halfway between the door
and the table and 'almost carried him over to the conference
table. Clarence was crying and hyperventilating.' . . . For about
fifteen minutes, Clarence was 'just wailing.'"

*** Danforth
deceived his senatorial colleagues.

-- "I
was asking fellow senators to make public statements of support
without disclosing to them that the Hill allegation was in the
possession of the Judiciary Committee . . . I think that if I
have any standing in the Senate, it is because my colleagues
trust me. I have tried to win that trust by telling them the
truth and not being devious. Now I was urging them to act without
telling them about a charge that could cause them to act differently.
Still, the strategy of trying to get senators to commit to Clarence
was clearly correct."

*** Danforth
knew that Thomas did not react in a way typical of someone certain
of their innocence.

-- "At
0:45 AM on Wednesday September 25, Lee Liberman phoned Clarence
at his home to tell him that the white House had received another
allegation. . . Clarence describes his reaction to the call as
'panic.'"

-- Danforth
quotes Thomas' wife: "What it felt like is that Clarence
still had some sin his life and he had to get that out in order
to be open to the Holy Spirit and that he had a vestige of sin,
that he was in this furnace and God wasn't going to let him keep
going without eliminating this vestige of sin."

*** Danforth
displays an abysmal indifference to facts, preferring ex cathedra
exculpation of Thomas and supporters and ad hominem attacks on
his critics.

*** Danforth
performed various sleazy or propagandistic tasks without remorse.

-- "My
appearance on 'Face the Nation' was the beginning of my effort
to destroy the credibility of Anita Hill. In the past four days,
I had had a deeply spiritual experience. There would be no spiritual
content to what would follow. When I put my hands on Clarence's
shoulders on Friday morning and said, 'Go forth in the name of
Christ, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit," I acted
as a minister. Now I would begin to act like a street fighter.
No question about the propriety of doing this crossed my mind."

-- "Of
course, I had never met Anita Hill. I had no expertise in psychology
or psychiatry. I was not in a forum where my comments could be
challenged successfully. I was in a fifteen-minute segment of
a talk show, and I was accusing a perfect stranger of having
a psychiatric condition."

-- "Now
there was a new possibility: to establish Clarence's credibility
behind a doubt by destroying the credibility of Anita Hill .
. . I knew that Anita Hill was going to be demolished."

*** Danforth
deceived his own readers.

Known
to the committee, but mainly reported only by the alternative
media (including TPR 12/91]was the fact that three key witnesses
supported Hill's allegations but were never called to testify
because, by that time, both the Democrats and the Republicans
on the committee had apparently decided to take a dive on the
Thomas case. Danforth mentions only one of these witnesses, Angela
Wright, whom he says had been fired been three times, once by
Thomas, but never cites her deposition corroborating Hill. This
is typical of Danforth who seemed to make up his mind swiftly
on such matters based on convenient tidbits from the right sources.
The two other women are not mentioned at all.

*** Danforth
made dubious, some might even say blasphemous, use of the Christian
faith to pursue his tawdry ends.

-- "So
I took Clarence into a bathroom and punched the button of a tape
player, and a song came on that is rarely heard anymore in Christian
churches. It is considered far too bellicose for today's believers
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war! And when Clarence
left my office for the Caucus Room, it was not as a martyr with
his eyes fixed on heaven. It was as a warrior doing battle for
the Lord."

-- He
called his book "Resurrection."

-- He
ends his book with these extraordinary words: "Clarence
Thomas walked into the Senate Caucus Room, took his seat at the
witness table, and commenced his testimony. Clarence had risen.
Alleluia.!"

***

This is
the man who was entrusted to investigate the deaths of those
who had followed another leader who misused religion for his
own puerile purposes. Danforth was clearly not the right person
for the job and his latest report, like his book, must be regarded
with deep suspicion. The Waco case is still open.

MAY
2000

HERE IS
WHAT HAS HAPPENED recently to experts looking into aspects of
the Waco massacre:

-- DIED:
Carlos Ghigliotti, who had provided a congressional committee
with damaging evidence, based on forward-looking infrared, against
the FBI. According to the Laurel Police Department, an autopsy
found that Ghigliotti, 42, had died of natural causes - a heart
attack precipitated by arteriosclerosis.

-- STROKE: Edward Allard, who appears in the documentary, "Waco:
The Rules of Engagement," produced by Michael McNulty. Has
not fully recovered from the stroke that occurred in March.

-- BLOOD
POISONING: FLIR expert Fred Zegel and associate of Allard at
the Pentagon. Zegal at first sided with the government than changed
his mind. Writes Sarah Foster in WorldNet Daily, "In April,
he reportedly went to a public auction where he collapsed and
was rushed to a hospital where he was diagnosed as having blood
poisoning. He was in a serious condition for 10 days."

-- KIDNEY
INFECTION: Maurice "Mac" Cox, a technical intelligence
expert who as a consultant for McNulty's documentary. McNulty
told WorldNet Daily that Cox had recently had a serious renal
[kidney] infection. "However, he noted, Cox has had a "renal
condition" for a number of years."

LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The lead lawyer in the Branch Davidians'
wrongful death lawsuit asked a federal judge Monday to impound
all information relating to the 1993 siege of the sect's compound
from a Washington-area office where an infrared expert was found
dead last week. Mike Caddell of Houston said he sought emergency
intervention from the court in Waco to ensure that all significant
information was preserved from the Laurel, Md., office and home
of Carlos Ghigliotti. Police were still investigating the cause
of Mr. Ghigliotti's death Monday.

WASHINGTON
POST: Carlos Ghigliotti, who had been retained by a US House
committee to help investigate the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian
compound in Waco, Tex., was found dead in Laurel under unexplained
circumstances yesterday.
"We're investigating it as a homicide," said Laurel
police spokesman Jim Collins. Ghigliotti, 42, was found about
1:30 p.m. in the 600 block of Washington Boulevard. His body
was badly decomposed, said police. There were no signs of a break-in
or a struggle at the home, where Ghigliotti ran his business,
Infrared Technologies Corp., police said. An expert in thermal
imaging and videotape, Ghigliotti told the House Government Reform
Committee in October that his analysis of tapes at Waco indicated
that an FBI agent fired shots at the compound on April 19, the
final day of the siege--a view disputed by the FBI.

THE LIST
Summary of most important events
that occurred on April 19, 1993,
at Waco according to the late expert
and congressional consultant Carlos Ghigliotti,
recently found dead in his home of suspected foul play

-- Total
number of gunfire shots coming out of the structure 69
-- Total number of gunfire shots going into the structure 57
-- Total number of flash devices 1 cluster

-- Total
number of times the tanks penetrated into the structure 33
-- Total number of times the tanks penetrated through the structure
1

INFOWARS: InfoWars has learned that the supposedly independent
British company hired by the Justice Department to analyze the
March 19, 1999 Fort Hood FLIR video is actually a Washington,
DC-area defense contractor with ties to the BATF. Vector Data
Systems is a division of Anteon Corporation, a professional technical
services corporation staffed with 4,000 highly trained employees
in more than 70 offices and government sites worldwide. The Fort
Hood FLIR video project was staged by the government in order
to counter the evidence presented in two documentary films produced
by Michael McNulty that show clear evidence of government gunfire
during the Mt. Carmel Massacre on April 19, 1993.

[An attorney who worked closely with suddenly dead FLIR expert
Carlos Ghigliotty has posted an account of what he knew about
the investigation and what Ghigliotty intended to give congressional
investigators. David Hardy says that now that Ghigliotty is dead,
he is free to reveal what he knows. It is disturbing.]

BEFORE
WACO AND MIAMI

The Gonazalez
and Waco incidents are not the only times that Janet Reno has
mangled a case involving children. In 1989, as Florida state
attorney, she pressed adult charges against a 13-year-old youth,
Bobby Fijnje, accused of sexually molesting 21 children in his
care during Presbyterian church services. The charges were driven
by the testimony of children interviewed by mental health professionals
using techniques against child-care providers later discredited
as a contemporary version of witch hunts. The state dropped two
of the accusers, including a boy who claimed he had turned himself
into Superman, tied Fijnje up, flew out the window, and called
the police.

As PBS
Frontline reported later: "Prosecutors pressed forward,
charging Bobby with seven counts of sexual battery against two
young girls. But, neither of the girls, or other children serving
as collateral witnesses, would testify at trial. The prosecutors
took advantage of newly-adopted state laws that allowed for the
admission of the children's videotaped testimony and expanded
acceptance of hearsay evidence from parents, psychologists and
state interviewers . . . [The defense] attacked the interviews
of the therapists and State interviewers. They argued that repeated
and suggestive questioning had accounted for the children's allegations."

Despite
an early and disputed confession, Finjnje was acquitted of all
charges and his family moved to Holland. According to PBS:

"And
after the trial, Janet Reno received a letter from the jury.
The jurors in the Fijnje case wanted Ms. Reno to know why her
office had failed to make a convincing case. They wrote: 'It
is our hope that this case will lay the foundation upon which
a set of policies and guidelines are built so that when cases
of abuse, especially child abuse, are alleged, the programs in
place will allow for appropriate questioning and investigation
by the police, physicians and child psychologists so as to drastically
reduce the chances of conflicting testimony and charges of contamination
that can and will raise reasonable doubt.'"

One of
the experts in the case, Dr. Stephen Ceci, explained to PBS part
of the problem with the techniques upon which Reno relied:

"There's
something that we call stereotype induction in the literature,
which means that if you repeatedly tell kids that someone's bad,
sooner or later quite a few of those kids start acting in accordance
with that. They start fearing the person, they won't be in the
room with him, some of the kids will begin to confabulate stories
about bad things the person did to them. We and others have done
lots of experiments on this where we induce stereotypes in the
preschoolers that someone takes something that didn't belong
to him or someone doesn't share with another or someone is clumsy
and is always breaking things or whatever. And we look to see
what impact that has three, four months later, and it does have
an impact on kids' accuracy. They give you a lot of this stereotyped
consistent confabulation. And in Fijnje there was quite a lot
of that.... For instance, the interviewer says things such as,
"Don't worry, Bobby's in jail," or, "Did your
mom and dad tell you he can't hurt children anymore because he's
in jail?" That kind of repetitive negative stereotyping
can be found, it's really littered throughout lots of the interviews
in that case . . . Kids are cooperative conversational partners.
They believe that you're asking them about something because
it probably happened. They want to please you, they want to give
you the answer that they think will make you happiest, and especially
if the first couple times they resist this and say no and you
keep bringing it up, they start to get the message that, "Well,
maybe I've been giving the wrong answer and I should switch."
So the negative stereotype induction frees kids. It allows them
to use their imaginations about what other things would be consistent
with someone who's bad, so you start to hear things about how,
"Oh yeah, I remember, he made us kill a baby and put it
in the microwave and we cooked it and we ate it."

LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A key FBI decision-maker wrote in late March
1993 that he feared bureau officials in Waco were lobbying to
gas the Branch Davidians because the officials were tired, frustrated
and under pressure from the FBI's hostage rescue team commander,
documents show. Congressional officials said that memo is particularly
disturbing because they have never seen it or several other internal
FBI records detailing the contentious decision-making process
that lead to the tear-gassing of the Branch Davidian compound.
Some of those documents, which The Dallas Morning News recently
obtained, show that senior FBI officials were initially deeply
skeptical of their on-scene commander's insistence that tear
gas was the only safe way to end the Waco standoff.

LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Efforts by federal prosecutors to access
files from the government computer once used by a Waco whistle-blower
prompted angry complaints to the Justice Department this week
from a congressional committee investigating the Branch Davidian
siege. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton
sent a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno late Tuesday demanding
a full explanation for the search, which occurred days after
that committee's investigators conducted lengthy interviews with
the whistle-blower, former federal prosecutor Bill Johnston.

DALLAS
MORNING NEWS: Suspicions about the role of military commandos
in Waco also have been fed by various differing Pentagon statements
about the total number of Delta Force soldiers who were sent.
In October 1993, Congress was told that a total of three were
sent "during the 51 day siege." A General Accounting
Office investigator said last August that a lengthy GAO audit
of military assistance in Waco could not determine the number
of special forces soldiers. The investigator was told five by
Pentagon officials but later found records showing eight were
there. Justice Department lawyers filed court statements last
year swearing that 10 special forces soldiers were sent. But
Defense Department records include classified rosters of 14 special
forces personnel assigned to Waco duties, and investigators are
still trying to resolve the discrepancies.DALLAS
NEWS

LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The FBI's two lead Waco commanders violated
a Washington-approved plan by ordering tanks to begin demolishing
the Branch Davidian compound in 1993, and thus should be liable
for the horrific tragedy that ensued, the sect's lawyers argued
Wednesday. Their Wednesday plea in a Waco federal court lays
out a detailed case for how FBI commanders Jeffrey Jamar and
Richard Rogers within hours diverted from the plan authorized
by top FBI officials and approved by Attorney General Janet Reno.
That written plan allowed for demolition of the sect's embattled
building only after tear gas had been sprayed into it for 48
hours, but FBI tanks began demolishing the rear of the building
less than five hours after the gassing began. "The decisions
made by Rogers and Jamar were unauthorized, outside the scope
of their authority, unjustified by the circumstances, and caused
or contributed to the deaths of countless innocent children and
some adults," the plaintiff's motion argued.DALLAS
NEWS

DECEMBER
1999

LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: During the FBI's efforts in 1993 to force
sect members to surrender, agents used loudspeakers to blast
loud music and other ear-splitting noises into the compound.
FBI commanders said that nonstop nightly Nancy Sinatra songs,
shrieks of dying rabbits, Christmas carols and Tibetan monk chants
would increase the Branch Davidians' discomfort and sleep deprivation
. . . Fredrick Lanceley, a retired FBI negotiator who was at
Waco, said in 1993 that negotiators warned "they knew of
no situation where this ever worked or where the FBI had ever
failed to look bad in the media for doing this" . . . Intervention
from FBI Director William Sessions, prompted by a letter of complaint
from the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, finally
silenced the chant broadcasts, FBI records indicate. Other broadcasts
continued.

OCTOBER
-NOVEMBER
1999

THE REVIEW LIST
Things that John Danforth,
Clarence Thomas, and Ralston Purina
have in common

-- DANFORTH hired THOMAS
out of law school as an assistant attorney general in Missouri.
-- DANFORTH brought THOMAS to Washington as a legislative assistant
when elected to the Senate.
-- DANFORTH helped THOMAS get appointed to the Reagan transition
team, the Department of Education, and the EEOC.
-- DANFORTH helped THOMAS get appointed to the US Court of Appeals,
calling him my "personal friend."
-- DANFORTH played a crucial role in getting THOMAS appointed
to the Supreme Court.
-- DANFORTH, during the time in question, owned RALSTON PURINA
stock worth more than $7.5 million.
-- Two brothers of DANFORTH were on the board of directors of
RALSTON PURINA
-- One brother of DANFORTH was a member of the board of trustees
of Washington University, which had large holdings in RALSTON
PURINA.
-- Alpo and RALSTON PURINA were sued on charges of false advertising.
-- US District Judge Stanley Sporkin fond both companies in the
wrong, but found that RALSTON PURINA alone had acted willfully
in having "perpetrated a cruel hoax" on dog owners
in its claims that it dog food could cure a serious ailment.
He assessed a $10 million fine against RALSTON PURINA.
-- A few weeks after being confirmed, THOMAS heard the RALSTON
PURINA appeal. He wrote an opinion for the court overturning
the $10 million fine against RALSTON PURINA.
-- This was good news for his friend DANFORTH and his $7.5 million
in RALSTON PURINA stock, but appears to be a clear violation
of 28 USC 455 which requires a federal judge to disqualify himself
in proceedings in which the judge's impartiality "might"
reasonably be questioned.

[This information appeared
in the August 24, 1991, edition of Legal Times in an article
by Monroe Freedman, professor of legal ethics at Hofstra University
Law School. Freedman wrote that "Thomas showed no regard
for his ethical obligations as a judge and no respect for the
statutory mandate that he recuse himself. On both counts, Thomas
is unfit to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States."
The media, more interested in stray hairs on Coke cans, ignored
the story.]

WACO INVESTIGATORS
PLEASE COPY

The new defense authorization
bill contains hidden language that would allow the Secretary
of Defense to keep secret the names of any members of the armed
forces "assigned to an overseas unit, a sensitive unit,
or a routinely deployable unit." "Sensitive" units
include a "unit that is primarily involved in training for
the conduct of, or conducting, special activities or classified
missions" or "any other unit that is designated as
a sensitive unit by the Secretary of Defense." This measure
would provide additional cover for illegal and anti-democratic
domestic activities.

WASHINGTON POST: An expert
retained by the House Government Reform Committee said yesterday
that he believes an FBI agent fired shots during the bureau's
1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., a
view that is at odds with the FBI's consistent position that
none of its agents fired at any time.

LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING
NEWS: Federal officials from Attorney General Janet Reno down
have maintained for years that the FBI did not know that the
Davidians were spreading fuel and preparing to set a fire throughout
the FBI's six-hour tank and tear gas assault on the compound.
But Col. Rodney L. Rawlings of Austin said in an interview that
"you could hear everything from the very beginning, as it
was happening. I heard it," said Col. Rawlings, who heard
bug transmissions from speakers in an FBI monitoring room. "Anyone
who says you couldn't at the time is being less than truthful."

DRUDGE REPORT: Recently
unearthed internal FBI documents reveal that the bureau faxed
a formal assault plan directly to the White House in the early
days of the 51-day Branch Davidian seige, Sunday's Dallas Morning
News is reporting. The DMN's Lee Hancock and David Jackson are
reporting that the attack plan was sent to the White House on
March 8, 1993 at the behest of then Assistant Attorney General
Webster Hubbell. Hubbell testified before Congress in 1995 that
the White House played no role in Waco decision making ....

Also revealed: Tactical
experts for the FBI also sought authority -- but were rejected
-- to shoot upon Branch Davidians leaving the compound and approaching
their armored vehicles .... The documents show regular and ongoing
consultations between the FBI and military experts during the
stand-off .... One undated document shows that the former head
of the Army's secret anti-terrorist unit Delta Force, General
Peter J. Schoomaker, was sent to Waco despite questions that
he had the authority to be there in the first place.

DRUDGE REPORT http://www.drudgereport.com

JAMES RIDGEWAY, VILLAGE
VOICE: The Army's Delta Force and the Navy Seals weren't the
only observers at Waco, which, as details spill out, looks more
and more like a training op for the international commando set.
Among others present were representatives of Britain's elite
Special Air Services, infamous for its counterinsurgency operations
in Northern Ireland." Ridgeway cites a 1996 letter from
the FBI to Senator Charles Robb, which says that "...two
SAS soldiers visiting at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, requested
and were granted a courtesy visit. The main purpose...was to
experience how the FBI operated its command post. They were shown
the relationship of the FBI's command post to the tactical operations
center, were allowed a visit to the forward tactical area, and
were provided generic briefings regarding the incident. Although
the [Hostage Rescue Team] had tactical interface with the SAS
during routine practice and training, at no time was the SAS
called upon to participate in...the siege."

LEE HANCOCK AND DAVID
JACKSON, DALLAS MORNTING NEWS: Despite written statements from
FBI agents and technicians that recordings were made [at Waco],
no videotape from the surveillance cameras has ever been made
public by the federal government. Critics of the government's
actions in Waco say their efforts to obtain such videos have
been blocked for years by the FBI and the Department of Justice
.... Formal written statements, known as FBI 302s, obtained by
The Dallas Morning News show that at least five FBI agents were
sent to Waco to maintain closed-circuit cameras .... One agent
reported watching from the closed-circuit TV system as FBI tanks
began firing tear gas into the compound on April 19, the documents
state. A supervisor from the FBI's Quantico, Va., training academy
said that the FBI's cameras were also running as the compound
caught fire with sect leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers
inside, according to a second FBI 302.

LEE HANCOCK AND DAVID
JACKSON, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Despite written statements from
FBI agents and technicians that recordings were made [at Waco],
no videotape from the surveillance cameras has ever been made
public by the federal government. Critics of the government's
actions in Waco say their efforts to obtain such videos have
been blocked for years by the FBI and the Department of Justice
.... Formal written statements, known as FBI 302s, obtained by
The Dallas Morning News show that at least five FBI agents were
sent to Waco to maintain closed-circuit cameras .... One agent
reported watching from the closed-circuit TV system as FBI tanks
began firing tear gas into the compound on April 19, the documents
state. A supervisor from the FBI's Quantico, Va., training academy
said that the FBI's cameras were also running as the compound
caught fire with sect leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers
inside, according to a second FBI 302.

DRUDGE REPORT: The Justice
Department has decided to back down from its attempt to stop
a federal judge in Texas from gaining control of evidence relating
to the Branch Davidian siege at Waco in 1993, the Dallas Morning
News is reporting .... The News' Lee Hancock and David Jackson
quote U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford, who initially expressed the
government's plan to challenge Smith: "Our intent is to
comply with the order. We're working on that now."

WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD: Plaintiffs
in the Branch Davidian lawsuit against the government filed a
document Monday in Waco's federal court stating they have an
expert who will testify his analysis of a FLIR tape shows at
least 60 shots were fired at the Davidians on the day their residence
burned down.

THE FIRE UPCOMING

CARL LIMBACHER, NEWSMAX:
Inside Cover has learned that Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas,
Texas was warned, by federal agents on the scene in Waco, to
prepare for trauma victims at least six hours before a fiery
inferno consumed the Branch Davidian compound on April 19, 1993
.... A news report, broadcast on local Dallas television as the
Mt. Carmel church fire raged out of control, revealed that Parkland
Hospital staff had been called by the FBI just after 6:00 A.M.
that day, more than six hours before fire erupted inside the
compound. The report featured a live interview with Parkland's
then-Director of Emergency Services Jorie Kline by Channel 4's
Cynthia Gau, a little more than an hour after the fire erupted:
....

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: You
bring up a good point here that 25 to 30 people may have survived.
Let's go live now to Parkland Hospital, where Cynthia Gau is
standing by with more on the medical aspect. Cynthia, what can
you tell us in that respect?

GAU: We are in one of
the largest and best burn centers in the state of Texas. And
standing with me right now is Jorie Kline. And she is a nurse
administrator here and she was put on alert; the whole hospital
was put on alert, at 6:11 this morning. Now, what's going to
be happening here?

KLINE: Well, everyone
is on alert because of the potential situation in Waco and everybody's
prepared to take care of any patients that are flown to us from
the Waco area.

GAU: How many doctors
will be available?

KLINE: Well, from the
general surgery service we can pool our resources of approximately
50 surgeons. And then we also have our emergency medicine program
as well as internal medicine in case there are any smoke inhalation
victims.

MARA LEVERITT, ARKANSAS
TIMES: Good for Asa Hutchinson. This week the Arkansas congressman
called for a bipartisan inquiry into the federal government's
use of incendiary tear gas canisters during the final hours of
the siege at Waco .... Way to go, Congressman. Pursue those questions
about who consulted with whom, to what extent the Army's Delta
Force was involved, why the attorney general was kept (as she
claims) completely in the dark, and whatever other dark secrets
whose answers ought to come to light .... But don't forget that
there are federal secrets concerning a town in Arkansas that
have been even more deeply buried.

As you may remember, I
contacted you, asking your help in persuading the FBI to honor
a Freedom of Information request about Mena that I'd had on file
with them for years. You promised your assistance, but Rep. Vic
Snyder, to whom I'd also written, actually went to work. The
FBI stalled, but Snyder's staff persisted. Finally, their efforts
paid off -- at least partly. Two weeks ago, I received 488 pages
of FBI records pertaining to Barry Seal, the cocaine smuggler
who, as you know, moved his billion-dollar drug business from
Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the airport at Mena, Arkansas in 1982.

You were the U.S. attorney
for Arkansas's western district at the time, and, according to
at least one former agent, you called a meeting soon after Seal
arrived to advise federal investigators in the state that the
smuggler was setting up shop.

But, though he was constantly
watched, Seal was never stopped. He operated from Mena, apparently
unimpeded, until 1986, when he was murdered by Colombian operatives.

.... Opening the box from
the FBI, I hoped that the documents inside would answer some
of these questions. Unfortunately, they did not. Instead, they
raised several even more intriguing questions. For example, according
to one document, the Justice Department kept tight control of
the investigation into Seal's murder, "since," as an
assistant attorney general explained, "this is a case with
apparent national and organized crime dimensions..."

.... But this is what
I found most interesting. Notes explaining several of the deletions
said that they had been made under provisions of the National
Security Act of 1947 and the CIA Act of 1949. So it's quite a
mess, you see, these jumbled references to organized crime and
national security, to Colombian drug cartels and the CIA -- all
within the heavily censored file of a smuggler who found safe
haven in Arkansas during the last four years of his life.

ARKANSAS TIMES http://www.arktimes.com/mara/090399mara.html

AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN:
In an admission sure to fuel new questions about military involvement
in the Branch Davidian siege, state officials revealed in an
Austin courtroom Friday that a Texas Rangers' report on evidence
collected at the scene contains classified military secrets.
Attorneys for the Texas Department of Public Safety said the
report can't be made public yet because other agencies needed
time to review it to see whether any parts of it should remain
confidential.

"What's interesting
about 'Waco,' is if you're looking for people who are unbalanced
zealots, you don't find them among the Branch Davidians, you
find them among the FBI and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Those
are the people who deserve to be fears, I think." -- Movie
critic Roger Ebert in a review when "Waco: The Rules of
Engagement" was first released.

LEE HANCOCK, THE DALLAS
MORNING NEWS: Expended U.S. military illumination flares fired
by U.S. government personnel have been discovered in the tons
of evidence recovered from the Branch Davidian compound, the
head of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday night.
Texas Rangers searching a Waco storage facility for missing pyrotechnic
tear-gas grenades discovered one of the military devices, a star
parachute flare. Evidence logs indicate that more of the flares
were recovered in the weeks after the compound burned following
an FBI siege and tear-gas assault April 19, 1993, said James
B. Francis Jr. of Dallas .... "They didn't need these flares
to light the compound. One or more was fired. For what purpose
or reason would these rounds be used?" he said. "I
can't tell you whether they were [shot by] the military or FBI,
but certainly, they were fired by government officials,"
Mr. Francis said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/specials/waco/0908waco1111waco.htm

MATT DRUDGE IS REPORTING
that a former CIA agent who claims knowledge of involvement by
Delta Force members in a shoot-out at Waco has been warned by
the FBI that he signed confidentiality papers when he went to
work for the agency. Two important points:

-- He is not alone. Nearly
every government official with a security clearance has signed
such a gag order -- as have those working for defense contractors.
These employees commit a crime if they reveal even illegal activities.
This system is designed to keep the public from knowing what
is going on in the government it pays for.

-- What the hell was the
CIA doing at Waco? It is against the law for the agency to intervene
in domestic matters.

CHOOSING JOHN DANFORTH
to investigate the Washington establishment is like asking a
member of the College of Cardinals to rat on the Pope.

LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING
NEWS: A federal judge was forced to intervene Friday after the
federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to block
Texas Rangers from searching a Waco storage facility for evidence
that pyrotechnic devices were fired at the Branch Davidian complex.
The brief skirmish came as FBI officials in Washington released
the second of two newly discovered aerial videotapes that include
conversations between FBI commanders about the use of combustible
tear-gas canisters.

WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD: When
the FBI took over the government's standoff with the Branch Davidians,
it quickly asked for and got a store of equipment from the military.
The list was extensive: 10 Bradley Fighting Vehicles; 4 Combat
Engineering Vehicles; 2 Abrams tanks; an M88 tank retriever;
helicopters; Humvees; tents, generators, video equipment; gas
masks, night vision goggles and concertina wire. What the FBI
didn't get was tear gas. An FBI spokesman told the Tribune-Herald
that the agency's Hostage Rescue Team in 1993 carried military
tear gas as a regular part of its inventory.

NEW YORK TIMES: The Pentagon's
elite Special Operations Command sent observers to the siege
of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas more than a month before
the final assault on the compound, suggesting that military commandos
had a far longer and closer involvement in the disastrous 1993
operation than previously divulged, according to declassified
government documents. The documents obtained under the Freedom
of Information Act also show for the first time that officials
at the highest levels of the Defense Department, including Secretary
of Defense Les Aspin and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were briefed
by the Special Operations Command about the events near Waco.
The command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida,
oversees the military's most secretive commando squads, including
the Army's Delta Force and the Navy Seals, and the documents
suggest that the command was monitoring the situation virtually
from the start of the 51-day siege. The command's spokesmen did
not return calls for comment on the documents.

AGENCE FRANCE PRESS: Women
and children among the 80 dead in the FBI siege at Waco, Texas
in 1993, faced the choice of being burned alive in an inferno
or shot to death by FBI agents blocking their escape, critics
of the siege alleged Sunday. Michael McNulty, producer of a new
film on the siege of the Branch Davidian compound, told "Fox
New Sunday" talk show he had evidence that FBI sharpshooters
were blocking the only exit from the burning building. He said
he had footage of "individuals at the back of the building
engaged in a gunfight" who were blocking the only escape
route unmolested by tanks. "Once that building caught on
fire, the women and the children and the adults inside that building
had no way out," he said. "They had a choice of being
shot to death or burning to death."

DRUDGE REPORT: A former
government officer has told investigators that members of the
secret Army unit Delta Force said they participated in a shoot-out
during the final assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.
The witness, according to congressional sources, has already
named names -- and will soon offer his account under oath.

THE OKLAHOMAN: It was
April 1994, a year after the Branch Davidian standoff ended in
disaster, when Bob Ricks had his chance to quiz Attorney General
Janet Reno. He had finished his job as chief FBI spokesman during
the 51-day siege outside Waco, Texas, but it still bothered him
that the Justice Department later ordered agents, he said, not
to speak about the operation. Reno was in Oklahoma City to promote
a congressional crime bill and met with employees of the local
FBI office. "I said, 'You probably don't realize it, but
in the Midwest, Waco is still extremely a big deal out here,
and it's the subject of much conversation. As you know, we've
been ordered not to respond or say anything, and I think that
that could ultimately end up being a problem,'" Ricks said
Friday. The ex-agent said Reno replied, "I don't think the
American people care about Waco anymore."
A Justice Department spokesman said Reno denies making the comment.

THE OKLAHOMAN: http://www.oklahoman.com/cgi-bin/shart?ID=370047&TP=getarticle

DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A
U.S. district judge ordered government lawyers Thursday to turn
over all evidence pertaining to the 1993 Branch Davidian siege
by Oct. 1 or face contempt-of-court charges. The order by Judge
Walter Smith of Waco came in response to a U.S. Justice Department
motion this week challenging his authority to demand control
of the evidence being sought in a wrongful-death lawsuit ....
"The court's purpose is to secure the evidence so that neither
the parties to the pending civil litigation, the media or the
public will perceive that the government may have the opportunity
to conceal, alter or fail to reveal evidence," Judge Smith
wrote.

JOSEPH FARAH, WORLD NET
DAILY: One of the original witnesses against the Branch Davidians
was Bill Buford, the agent in charge of the Little Rock, Ark.,
branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Buford
was, also, according to Arkansas sources, a friend of Bill. The
Waco case was apparently very important to Buford as an affidavit
states he was working on New Year's Day calling former Branch
Davidians seeking to find evidence of sexual abuse .... Documents
show Buford is noted as one of two "senior raid planners."
He was also one of the BATF agents wounded during the Feb. 28
assault, but he is perhaps the only BATF agent to be visited
in the hospital by none other than top Treasury Department official
Roger Altman. Altman was the long-time "Friend of Bill"
appointed to be deputy secretary of the Treasury and chief executive
officer of the Resolution Trust Corporation. He resigned in August
1994 due to his interference in the Whitewater investigation.
At the time of the Waco raid, Roger Altman was the second highest-ranking
official at the Department of the Treasury. The BATF is a bureau
within the Treasury Department

JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON
TIMES: In addition to seeking information on the FBI's use of
incendiary devices, which the FBI now admits, House
investigators have targeted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms
agents in its preparation for a failed attempt to arrest Davidian
leader
David Koresh seven weeks before the compound exploded in a fireball
on April 19, 1993 .... Capitol Hill sources say investigators
want information about the suspected misuse of a Texas National
Guard helicopter as a diversion during an earlier failed arrest
attempt Feb. 28, 1993 -- during which four ATF agents were killed.

LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING
NEWS: U.S. Justice Department lawyers on Tuesday challenged a
federal judge's authority to take control over evidence in the
Branch Davidian case, setting up a high-stakes legal showdown.
An Aug. 9 order in which U.S. District Judge Walter Smith demanded
custody of all documents and other evidence is without any legal
basis under federal or civil court rules, Justice Department
lawyers argued in a 19-page motion. The judge's move "threatens
a wholesale intrusion" into the executive branch and an
"unwarranted and substantial burden" on the entire
federal government.

DALLAS MORNING NEWS http://www.dallasnews.com/

TEXAS DEPT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
CHAIR JAMES FRANCIS: I think it's very unfortunate that the Justice
Department would try to prevent the federal court in Waco from
gaining access to all of the evidence in light of
everything that's happened in the last week... From what I can
understand of
the Justice Department's motion today, they're still attempting
to prevent
the evidence from being judicially reviewed. And I think that
is most
unfortunate. [Note: Francis is a top fund-raiser for GWB]

LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING
NEWS: A Waco federal prosecutor wrote Attorney General Janet
Reno on Monday to warn that "individuals or components within
the Department of Justice" may have long withheld evidence
from her and the public about the FBI's use of pyrotechnic grenades
on the day the Branch Davidian compound burned. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Bill Johnston said he felt compelled to warn Ms. Reno
after he was given a 5-year-old document that discusses the use
of "military gas" by the FBI on April 19, 1993. He
said he was concerned because the document, a three-page set
of notes detailing an interview with members of the FBI's hostage
rescue team, included handwritten notations suggesting that it
be kept from anyone outside the department's legal staff.

UPI: The woman who headed
the federal jury that convicted eight Branch Davidian members
in connection with the 1993 siege near Waco, Texas, says they
should get new trials because of new FBI admissions. Sarah Bain
headed a federal court jury that convicted the Davidians on charges
related to the Feb. 28, 1993 shootout .... In an interview with
WOAI radio in San Antonio today, Bain said the admission by the
FBI that agents fired flammable tear gas grenades near the compound
hours before the fire that ended the siege is grounds to ask
for new trials. Koresh and 80 of his followers died

JEFF NESMITH, COX NEWSPAPERS:
Army anti-terrorism specialists, including the commander of the
top-secret Delta Force, attended the 1993 meeting at which Attorney
General Janet Reno approved use of tear gas against members of
the Branch Davidian group near Waco, Texas. It is the first indication
that the Delta Force, whose presence at the fatal raid was disclosed
this week, was involved in planning the operation .... Documents
released to Cox Newspapers on Friday by the FBI indicate that
Col. William Boykin, then Delta Force commander, and Brig. Gen.
Peter Schoomaker, then the assistant division commander of the
1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, were the previously
unidentified officers who told Reno use of CS gas, a potent form
of tear gas, would make the compound "untenable."

TPR : Nesmith is wrong
in claiming this is the first report of Delta Force's involvement.
Here's a story from Counterpunch that TPR described a month ago:

"Counterpunch has
identified the two military men who took part in a Waco Massacre
planning session at the Justice Department: Colonel Gerald Boykin,
and his superior, Peter J. Schoomacher, the commanding general
at Fort Bragg. Counterpunch says that NATO Commander Wesley Clark
(who had served under Schoomacher) was not directly involved
in the attack:

"Boykin and Schoomacher
were present because the Army's Fort Bragg-based Combat Applications
Group -- popularly known as the Delta Force -- had been enlisted
as part of the assault team on the Branch Davidian Compound.
It appears that President Clinton had signed a waiver of the
Posse Comitatus Act, with the precedent being Ronald Reagan's
revocation of the Act in 1987, allowing the Delta Force to be
involved in suppressing the Atlanta prison riot.

"The role of the
Delta Force, the identity of the two Army officers, the revocation
of Posse Comitatus all form part of the disclosures of a forthcoming
documentary film, 'Waco: A New Revelation,' put together by the
same team that produced an earlier, excellent film, Waco: Rules
of Engagement."
Among the materials obtained by the film producers are 28 videos
showing US military in special assault gear and with name tags
obscured in the final onslaught on the Waco compound.

"Producer Mike McNulty
isolates Vince Foster as the White House point man for the Waco
operation. Writes Counterpunch: "McNulty cites Foster's
widow as saying that the depression that prompted the White House
lawyer's death was fueled by horror at the carnage at Waco for
which the White House had given the ultimate green light. Foster
was writing a Waco report when he died. McNulty says that some
documents about Foster and Waco were among those removed from
his office after his death, later to surface in a White house
store room sheltering archives of the First Lady."

COUNTERPUNCH http://www.counterpunch.org/

LEE HANCOCK, THE DALLAS
MORNING NEWS: The chairman of the Department of Public Safety
said that federal authorities also need to investigate and fully
explain why members of the U.S. Army's secret Delta Force anti-terrorist
unit were present on the day the compound burned. "Everyone
involved knows they were there ...." said James B. Francis
Jr. of Dallas. "Some of the evidence that I have reviewed
and been made aware of is very problematical as to the role of
Delta Force at the siege. However, I think it's only fair that
real independent experts look into that highly sensitive issue."
A Department of Defense document released under the federal Freedom
of Information Act confirmed that members of a classified Army
special forces unit were in the area when the FBI's hostage rescue
team used tanks to assault the compound with tear gas.

LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING
NEWS: The FBI is preparing to acknowledge in a formal statement
that its agents fired pyrotechnic tear gas grenades on the last
day of the Branch Davidian siege, senior federal law enforcement
officials said Tuesday. The statement would represent a reversal
from the federal government's adamant, long-held position that
the FBI used no device capable of sparking a fire on the day
the Davidian compound burned near Waco. Earlier this week, former
senior FBI official Danny Coulson told The Dallas Morning News
that pyrotechnic grenades had been used on April 19, 1993, the
day that the compound burned with David Koresh and more than
80 followers inside .... Earlier Tuesday, Texas Department of
Public Safety Commission Chairman James B. Francis said the Texas
Rangers have ``overwhelming evidence'' supporting Coulson's statement.

WACO EVIDENCE ORDERED
BY COURT

DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A
federal judge in Waco told the federal government Monday to hand
over every piece of evidence relating to the 1993 Branch Davidian
standoff. In a sweeping order, U.S. District Judge Walter Smith
told federal authorities to surrender to the federal clerk in
Waco everything "in any way relevant to the events occurring
at Mount Carmel," the Davidian compound besieged by federal
authorities from Feb. 28 to April l9, 1993.

"It is important
for two reasons that the materials be maintained and safeguarded.
First and foremost, the parties to civil litigation pending in
this court have a right to seek access," Judge Smith wrote.
"Second, the events that took place between Feb. 28 and
April 19, 1993, and thereafter, have resulted in sometimes intense
interest from the national media and members of the public."

JULY 1999

DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The
head of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday that
evidence held by the Texas Rangers since the 1993 Branch Davidian
siege calls into question the federal government's claim that
its agents used no incendiary devices on the day that a fire
consumed the sect's compound. "There's some evidence that
is at least problematic or at least questionable with regard
to what happened," said James B. Francis Jr. of Dallas,
chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Counterpunch has identified
the two military men who took part in a Waco Massacre planning
session at the Justice Department: Colonel Gerald Boykin, and
his superior, Peter J. Schoomacher, the commanding general at
Fort Bragg. Counterpunch says that NATO Commander Wesley Clark
(who had served under Schoomacher) was not directly involved
in the attack:

"Boykin and Schoomacher
were present because the Army's Fort Bragg-based Combat Applications
Group -- popularly known as the Delta Force -- had been enlisted
as part of the assault team on the Branch Davidian Compound.
It appears that President Clinton had signed a waiver of the
Posse Comitatus Act, with the precedent being Ronald Reagan's
revocation of the Act in 1987, allowing the Delta Force to be
involved in suppressing the Atlanta prison riot.

"The role of the
Delta Force, the identity of the two Army officers, the revocation
of Posse Comitatus all form part of the disclosures of a forthcoming
documentary film, 'Waco: A New Revelation,' put together by the
same team that produced an earlier, excellent film, Waco: Rules
of Engagement."

Among the materials obtained
by the film producers are 28 videos showing US military in special
assault gear and with name tags obscured in the final onslaught
on the Waco compound.

Producer Mike McNulty
isolates Vince Foster as the White House point man for the Waco
operation. Writes Counterpunch: "McNulty cites Foster's
widow as saying that the depression that prompted the White House
lawyer's death was fueled by horror at the carnage at Waco for
which the White House had given the ultimate green light. Foster
was writing a Waco report when he died. McNulty says that some
documents about Foster and Waco were among those removed from
his office after his death, later to surface in a White house
store room sheltering archives of the First Lady."

COUNTERPUNCH http://www.counterpunch.org/

WACO AND FOSTER

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
in The Secret Life Of Bill Clinton writes, "The Branch Davidian
siege was clearly on Foster's mind. He was 'drafting a letter
involving Waco' on the day of this death, surely a point of some
significance. He kept a Waco file in the locked cabinet that
was off limits to everybody, including his secretary. His widow
mentions Waco twice in her statement to the FBI: 'Toward the
end of his life, Foster had no sense of joy or elation at work.
The Branch Davidian incident near Waco, Texas, was also causing
him a great deal of stress. Lisa Foster believes that he was
horrified when the Branch Davidian complex burned. Foster believed
that everything was his fault.'"

Evans-Pritchard makes
no claim that Waco was a cause of Foster's death. After discussing
other anomalies, such as his ties to the National Security Agency,
the investigative reporter notes, "The point is that Foster
was involved in activities that belie the carefully drawn portrait
of a bemused country lawyer, and that have clearly been obscured
on purpose."

These comments are worth
reviving because of Counterpunch's revelation that two key Army
officers were involved in the Justice Department planning for
Waco and that Clinton had abrogated an longtime American principle
of not using the military in domestic law enforcement.

We now also know that
NATO chief Wesley Clark, then Texas-based, at the very least
approved the seconding of logistical support from his command.
We know that important records in Foster's possession were removed.
And we know that a military intelligence group moved in on the
White House following his death for unknown purposes.

This all, however, merely
adds to the mystery of Foster. What remains true is that the
existing facts argue strongly against Foster having died in a
park of his own hand. Put directly, if he did kill himself, someone
moved him afterwards, or else he was murdered. Under what circumstances
and for what reasons, we still don't know.

CLINTON & WACO

According to an must-read
report by Ken McCarthy at Brasscheck, the military was far more
deeply involved in the Waco massacre than is generally realized.
Behind the military's part in the operation was now NATO commander
General Wesley Clark. Among the points McCarthy makes are these:

-- The military's involvment
in a domestic law enforcement matter was illegal.
-- Used in the Waco massacre operation were 13 track vehicles,
9 combat engineer vehicles, 5 tank retrieval vehicles, and a
tank.
-- The military equipment and personnel came from the US Army
base at Ft. Hood, Texas, headquarters of III Corps. According
to an account from attorney David T. Hardy, who filed a freedom
of information action in the incident, "The operation required
mustering approximately a hundred agents (flown in from sites
around the country), and who received military training at Ft.
Hood. They traveled in a convoy of sixty vehicles and were supported
by three National Guard helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft,
with armored vehicles in reserve."
-- Clark was the Commander 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas
from August 1992 to April 1994. The Mt. Carmel raid was on February
29, 1993. The arson-murders occurred April 19. Clark had been
Commander of the National Training Center and Deputy Chief of
Staff for Concepts, Doctrine and Developments, US Army Training
and Doctrine Command TRADOC, where Clark was Deputy Chief right
before becoming an armor commander at Ft Hood, has as its primary
mission to "prepare soldiers for war and design the army
of the future." Item number one from the TRADOC vision statement:
"...enable America's Army to operate with joint, multinational
and interagency partners across the full range of operations."
-- General Clark, thanks to his operations at Waco and in the
Balkans, is now a front-runner to become America's first commander-in-chief
of the anti-democratic domestic command Clinton wants to establish.
-- President Clinton said, "The first thing I did after
the ATF agents were killed, once we knew that the FBI was going
to go in, was to ask that the military be consulted because of
the quasi-military nature of the conflict."
-- Attorney General Janet Reno attempted to explain away the
FBI use of US Army tanks as being equivalent to an innocuous
"rent a car" arrangement.
-- From early in the siege, "Operation Trojan Horse"
became a popular destination for special forces officers both
from around the United States and from its closest ally, the
UK. They came to observe the effectiveness of various high tech
devices and tactics that were being tested against the Branch
Davidians.
-- Two unnamed high ranking Army officers personally presented
Attorney General Janet Reno with the final assault tactics for
her, as chief law enforcement officer of the US, to sign off
on.
-- There are a number of rules used for the Waco massacre and
the invasion of Yugoslavia including 1. Exert tight information
control over a mostly cooperative US news media 2. Attribute
civilian casualty reports to "propaganda" 3. Declare
that the attacks are for humanitarian purposes, to "stop
the bad guy." 4. Break numerous agreements then call the
other side unreliable 5. Offer absurd terms in negotiation sessions,
hide these terms from the public, then punish the other side
for its recalcitrance in failing to accept a "reasonable"
settlement. 6. Coordinate a propaganda effort against the other
side before the assault (The Waco Tribune-Herald ran a two part
smear piece against Koresh on Feb 27, 1993, the day before the
raid, and on the morning of entitled, "The Sinful Messiah")
7. Accuse the other side of being responsible for crimes they
did not commit.
-- General Clark's last assignment before taking over NATO was
as Commander-in-Chief, United States Southern Command, Panama,
where he commanded all U.S. forces and was "responsible
for the direction of most U.S. military activities and interests
in Latin America and the Caribbean." i.e. the support of
repressive Latin American military and police operations and
a phony war against drugs.

Meanwhile, Dan Gifford,
producer of "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" writes
that "Secret anti-terrorist U.S. Army Delta Force and British
SAS soldiers were present at FBI invitation as 'observers.' But
reports of those troops illegally killing Americans on American
soil persist from sources that have provided accurate information
in the past. So do reports of classified weapons testing on the
Davidians that was being micro managed, along with everything
else, from Washington. A confirmed June, 1997 'Soldier of Fortune'
article by ABC Nightline contributor James Pate tells how FBI
agents who crept into Mount Carmel on April 17th to plant electronic
devices had a chance to arrest Koresh. But then Associate Attorney
General Web Hubbell (the de facto U.S. Attorney General) passed
word back from then White House counsel Vince Foster that Koresh
was to be left in the building."

The car of an aide to
President Clinton's chief counsel was burglarized this week and
several "sensitive documents" were stolen, White House
officials said late Thursday. A local television station, WTTG,
a Fox affiliate, reported that the documents included ones pertaining
to the investigation of the 1993 death of White House deputy
counsel Vince Foster and the 1994 federal raid on the Branch
Davidian compound at Waco, Texas. The White House press office
declined on the record to characterize the content of the documents.
Other White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity,
said however that among the material taken were several "sensitive
documents." They did not elaborate and suggested that the
break-in was more in the nature of a street crime than one of
political motivation. "It was a simple break-in," said
one official. The car belongs to Cheryl D. Mills, a special assistant
to White House counsel Abner Mikva. -- Chattanooga Free Press,
July 14, 1995